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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28074585">All’s Fair In Love and War</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/headwonk/pseuds/headwonk'>headwonk</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Worst Witch (TV 2017), The Worst Witch - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Romance, F/F, Friends to Lovers, Hanahaki Disease, Heartache, Hurt/Comfort, Internalized Homophobia, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Self-Hatred, cw: homophobia, mentions of bullying</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 18:00:45</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>948</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28074585</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/headwonk/pseuds/headwonk</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Hecate thinks her love for Pippa is unrequited which leads to a mouthful of petals.</p><p>What will Pippa do when she finds out Hecate has been suffering from Hanahaki disease because of her?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Hardbroom/Pentangle (Worst Witch)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>32</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>All’s Fair In Love and War</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hanahaki is a fictional disease that causes flowers to grow in your lungs over time when the person of your desire doesn’t love you (or you think they don’t) until, eventually, it kills you. </p><p>This causes you to constantly cough up petals, and the only cure is to either surgically remove the flower (which then makes you completely forget the person you love) or for said person to love you back. </p><p>Enjoy :)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It had been... a long time since Hecate had thought of her childhood best friend Pippa Pentangle. Ever since she left her friend as a teen, she’d done her hardest to put the blonde out of her mind lest she live in the past. Leaving Pippa, Hecate could safely say, was the worst thing she’d ever done, but she’d tried to put it out of mind. It had felt, all those years ago, like the right thing to do.</p><p>That was until the Spelling Bee.</p><p>It had been three weeks since the Spelling Bee (which, shockingly, Mildred had won). Speaking of which, Mildred Hubble had obviously seen something between Hecate and Pippa that had prompted her to trick them into talking to each other.</p><p>Because of that, the pair had managed to rekindle their friendship. There had been hugs and tears, and chess games at night when the students were in bed.</p><p>But Hecate wasn’t doing well.</p><p>Ever since they’d talked everything over, she’d been afflicted by something. A rare disease that only affected every few witches.</p><p>Hanahaki disease.</p><p>It was a magical illness that held no real cure, causing flowers to grow in your lungs. There wasn’t any way it could be cured by a potion or any incantations anyway.</p><p>This illness could only be cured if the object of your desires loved you back. Until then, you were forced to cough your lungs up and spit out petals. And then, for the unlucky ones whose love didn’t love them back, you died.</p><p>It had been a long three weeks since her affliction had begun and Hecate was desperately searching for a cure though she knew there was none. No witch or wizard had ever found a cure for the disease aside from the object of your desires loving you back.</p><p>Unfortunately for Hecate, the object of her desires, she knew, would never love her back. <em>And rightly so</em>, she found herself thinking on more than one occasion. <em>It was wrong, unnatural</em>. There was no way she would let herself taint Pippa’s perfection with her wicked nature. She would simply have to cure herself and move on. Forget about it all and cut Pippa off again.</p><p>That’s why she found herself in the library at night, desperately trying to find anything that may help her out of her predicament. Anything that mentioned Hanahaki disease, any first person tales written down on paper.</p><p>She only stopped, hours later, when there was a tickle in her chest. Her jaw clenched tightly as she rubbed it. She could practically feel the plant growing in her lungs, the petals working their way up her windpipe.</p><p>For a moment, she considered taking a seat and riding it out, hoping it would go away, but she knew it wouldn’t. So instead, she put back the book she’d been skimming through in hopes of answers and held up a hand to transfer herself to her quarters.</p><p>”Hecate?”</p><p>Hecate startled, having not heard anyone else enter the library. She supposed she must have been more distracted than she thought.</p><p>“Ada,” Hecate turned around and lowered her hand.</p><p>The tickling in her chest was slowly turning to a more painful stabbing sensation and she feared if she didn’t wrap this up quick, she might cough petals on the library floor.</p><p>”Is there any reason you’re up and in the library at this hour?” Ada asked, though there was no accusatory tone, simply curiosity.</p><p>Hecate took a moment to reply, swallowing saliva and breathing through the growing pain and rising petals.</p><p>“I was unable to sleep so I thought I’d grab a book to read,” she told Ada. It wasn’t strictly a lie, she had been unable to sleep. Every time she lay down, the plant blooming in her chest hurt. </p><p>“I see,” Ada smiled, “you must have finished the ones in your quarters already.”</p><p>Hecate nodded, not completely trusting her words.</p><p>”Well, don’t stay up too late, we have a fire drill scheduled for tomorrow, remember?” Ada reminded her.</p><p>She had almost forgotten and despite the part of her that wanted to stay in the library until she had found a damned cure, she also knew she had a job to do and she couldn’t.</p><p>Jerkily and with a jaw clenched so tight it ached, she nodded her head to Ada and transferred herself away back to her dorms.</p><p>She had barely touched the ground before she keeled over, knees hitting the stone floor, and began coughing harshly. She could feel the silky petals coated in saliva at the back of her throat, choking her. </p><p>With trembling hands, she reached into her mouth with two fingers and began extracting the petals one by one before she suffocated on the hard floor of her quarters.</p><p>By the time she had pulled out the last petal, her eyes were red and watering and her throat burned like fire. She almost collapsed completely to the floor with exhaustion. It was only the sight of the petals discarded in front of her that stopped her.</p><p>The disgusting things were pink like the object of her desires and only served as a reminder of her ill nature. And yet, they were tainted with blood. Small flickers of the stuff that had no doubt come from her own wrong body.</p><p>Swallowing, Hecate waved a hand and vanished the petals to save herself the turmoil. She then rose to her feet and changed herself into her bed clothes.</p><p>A fire drill tomorrow. Perhaps she would magic up some smoke. Scare the girls a little.</p><p>With those lingering thoughts, she shuffled into bed and hoped she would get more than a few hours rest.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>future chapters will be longer, don’t worry, this is just a warmup chapter introducing you to the fictional disease</p><p>i hope you all liked anyway and feel free to leave a comment</p></blockquote></div></div>
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